Web forums can be web applications used for holding discussions and posting user-generated content. In some web sites, web forums can account for more than 50% of the total site traffic. The user-generated content (“posts”) can take the form of textual messages, videos, sound files, or web links, for example. Posts can be topically grouped into topic threads (“threads”), which in turn can be organized into a hierarchy (e.g., based upon the time the message is posted, or based upon subtopics). Threads can be used, for example, to address questions users have about the website, technical difficulties confronting a user, and/or to socialize on any variety of subjects.
In conventional web forums, there generally is no methodology behind the creation of threads. Threads can be created by either a moderator or a member of the forum, and can relate to any topic the creator chooses. True to human nature, however, threads can easily be diverted from the original topic or topics, and as a result can become off-topic. Diverted threads can lead to unorganized, cluttered forums, with unanswered questions, responses that are irrelevant to the threads that they are situated within, and situations where the user is required to browse through a large number of posts within a thread to locate relevant subject material. Forum clutter can generally lead to inadequate community response to questions or problems, failure to resolve these issues, and reduced visibility and/or participation in threads. Because useful forum content can be crucial to forum participation, forum clutter can inhibit the effectiveness of a web forum. Furthermore, off-topic posts can take up the moderator's time and resources, because the off-topic posts must be manually moved to other threads in conventional web forums. Off-topic posts may also lead to thread “shoutdown,” where other users make posts directing the creator of the off-topic post to the correct thread. This can cause additional thread clutter.